By Allen Myers
An editorial in the Financial Review over the January 16-17 weekend adopted a rather plaintive tone regarding the scandals that have recently shaken the Olympics.
Headed “Cash tarnishes Games goal”, the editorial began by observing that the official goal of the Olympics is the “harmonious development of man” [sic]. It continued:
“It is regrettable that the Olympic movement appears not to have lived up to the spirit or the letter of this and other noble Olympic goals. For sponsors, TV rights holders and hard-working staff within the Games organisation it must be dispiriting to see the daily parade of corruption allegations against the International Olympic Committee.”
The Review referred not only to the bribery charges against some IOC members but also the “embarrassment” caused by a SOCOG board director having a paid consultancy advising a hotel corporation on its Olympic preparations.
The latter represented “an elementary failure to observe the spirit of the board's corporate governance guidelines”, and after much toing-and-froing over the obligations and responsibilities of directors and board members, the editorial concluded that the “health” of the Olympics required “the sound business principle of good corporate governance”.
“Corporate governance” is merely MBA-speak for being the boss, so the Review's recipe for Olympic well-being is for those in charge to run a tight ship. This seems rather lame, since some of those in charge, IOC members, are the people accused of corruption.
A more productive approach to the Olympic scandals would be to ask why the Financial Review or anyone else should expect the Olympics to be purer and cleaner than anything else in capitalist society.
The Olympics, after all, are big business, and there have been innumerable scandals confirming that bribery is a well-established part of business. Executives and directors feathering their own nests is even more common, if only because that doesn't require as much flouting of the law as bribery does.
The Review's editorial writer would like to maintain (and maybe even believes) the idea that some aspects of society, like the Olympics, can be walled off from capitalism and its influences. But how can you have the “harmonious development” of individuals inside the Olympic stadium, when outside the stadium nothing matters except money?
The prospect of paid endorsements teaches the athletes themselves that sport is subordinate to money, and there are few athletes who don't require this or some other form of steady income in order to pursue their training and competition.
Capital's very nature requires it to expand. It can't be kept out of any part of society where it discerns the possibility of profits, because all sectors are dependent upon money. How could the Olympics keep out the “sponsors” and “TV rights holders” whose values — profits over everything — are the fundamental corruption of the official Olympic goal? Their investments are “indispensable” to staging the Olympics.
So the Review editorial's headline considerably understates the reality. Money does considerably more than merely “tarnishing” Olympic ideals. Money — profit — corrupts. Everything.
The aim of socialism is to end the regulation of social activity by money. When society takes democratic control of its economy, it will become possible for the first time for both society and the individual to develop harmoniously.